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Article published In:
Dialogue in institutional settings
Edited by Franca Orletti and Letizia Caronia
[Language and Dialogue 9:1] 2019
► pp. 42–64

Staged conflicts in Austrian parliamentary debates

| University of Vienna (Austria)

This paper analyzes the rhetorical formats used by Austrian members of parliament (MPs) to express disagreement with previous speakers during the so-called ‘inaugural speech debates’. During these debates, MPs position themselves publicly as either government or opposition party representatives. Disagreeing with previous debate contributions represents a positioning practice that focuses on the interpersonal plane of interaction. The strict procedural rules of the debates, however, prevent MPs from engaging in genuine conflict talk. MPs rather use four rhetorical formats for signalling conflict with a previous speaker. This paper analyzes these strategies as well as their use by different groups of MPs and discusses their face aggravating/ impoliteness potential. Finally, it relates the results to previous studies of face work in political discourse.

Keywords: political discourse, parliamentary debates, conflict communication, discourse representation, face work, face aggravation
Article outline
  • 1.An exceptional case: A genuine interpersonal conflict during a parliamentary debate
  • 2.Interactional features of parliamentary debates
    • 2.1Participation framework and face work aspects of parliamentary debates
    • 2.2Institutional framework for Austrian parliamentary debates
    • 2.3Consequences of situational factors for conflict communication during parliamentary debates
  • 3.Data and methods
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Categories of analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Quantitative results
    • 4.2Metapragmatic contrast
    • 4.3Norm related metapragmatic critique
    • 4.4Interpersonal metapragmatic critique
    • 4.5Metapragmatic style critique
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 5 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00031.gru
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